Green changes health care exchange title on Nov. 6 ballot

Green changes health care exchange title on Nov. 6 ballot

Jay Kanzler stands before Judge Daniel Green, background, while Chris Kanzler, foreground right, and Jeremiah Morgan, at right, listen during a hearing Tuesday. The Kanzlers represent Lt. Governor Peter Kinder and Morgan represents Robin Carnahan in the lawsuit challenging the ballot title on a measure on health care exchanges.

Photo by
Julie Smith

Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green agreed with the challengers Tuesday, accepting one of their alternative proposals as the ballot language voters will see Nov. 6 on a measure about "health care exchanges."

Green released his two-page opinion Tuesday afternoon, a little over five hours after hearing lawyers for both sides argue about the language Secretary of State Robin Carnahan wrote for a proposed law the General Assembly placed on the ballot, prohibiting the state from creating state-based health care exchanges unless ordered to do so by lawmakers or by voters through an initiative petition.

Carnahan announced her language on July 3.

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a Republican, and top GOP leaders of the House and Senate filed their lawsuit July 10.

Green's judgment agreed that Carnahan's ballot language is not, as state law requires, "a true and impartial statement of the purposes of the proposed measure in language neither intentionally argumentative nor likely to create prejudice either for or against the proposed measure."

Green also ruled the ballot title "is not fair and sufficient" as the law requires.